Stop wishing there were more hours in a day, says Alex Soojung-Kim Pang. You don't need more time to work, you need more time to rest. Even Charles Darwin, for all his revolutionary thinking, only worked about four hours a day. That's just one example in Pang's book Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less . The author made the case for less work and more play in a 2016 visit.

The Oregon Natural Desert Association takes a variety of approaches to protecting Oregon's desert lands. The approaches now include training descendants of the desert's original inhabitants to help in the protection processes. The Tribal Stewards Program launched this summer with members of the Warm Springs, Siletz, and Navajo tribes.

Never a dull moment in the media biz, especially in a summer of blockbuster movies, racist tweets, and presidential candidate debates. Once a month we invite two members of the Communication faculty at Southern Oregon University to discuss happenings in the media. We're not complaining, but hoo boy, there's a lot to talk about, especially since we define media broadly, from cyberspace to books.

The viral video of a sea turtle with a plastic straw stuck in its nose may have convinced quite a few people to stop using so much plastic. It can be difficult, since so many consumer items are either made of plastic or packaged in it, often both. But scientists fear that plastic may outweigh fish in the oceans by the middle of the century. Will McCallum, the Head of Oceans for Greenpeace UK, doesn't want to see that happen. So he wrote a book called How to Give Up Plastic: A Guide to Changing

Garbage, trash, rubbish... pick your term. Now imagine reducing what we throw there, even further than we already have. That's the challenge the City of Eureka is placing before its citizens: the idea that NOTHING is wasted and ends up in a landfill. Go Zero Eureka is a campaign to push for a zero-waste community.

Waterways around the region are protected from development and pollution by a number of programs. Some are in the federal Wild and Scenic Rivers system. Oregon offers its own kind of protection under the designation of "Outstanding Resource Waters." The state Environmental Quality Commissioner recently agreed to move ahead with the designation for both Waldo Lake and Crater Lake, both in the Cascades. The Department of Environmental Quality is embarking on the planning process.

Dam removal continues to generate controversy in our region. Proponents see restored ecosystems and fish runs. Opponents see diminished irrigation water for agriculture, and a loss of beloved recreational lakes. Peter Brewitt examines the politics of dam removal in his new book, Same River Twice: The Politics of Dam Removal and River Restoration . The book looks at removal efforts of high and low controversy, from the Savage Rapids Dam on the Rogue to the Marmot Dam on the Sandy.

The devastation of losing a home to fire can be compounded by what follows: a long process involving insurance paperwork, site cleanup, and rebuilding. Oregon's Department of Consumer and Business Services offers some tips on thinking about disasters before they happen. DCBS urges people to make sure they have adequate insurance, and take a home inventory when things are quiet and no threat is looming.

It's stunning to look at pictures of American cities before we got serious about curbing air pollution. A heightened environmentally sensibility and the Clean Air Act has made a big difference in the quality of the air we breathe. Then again, it only takes a wildfire or two to bring the smoke rolling into our communities today. And other parts of the world face air pollution on a daily basis. Beth Gardiner gives us a world tour in the book Choked: Life and Breath in the Age of Air Pollution .

The process that led to the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") had some lofty goals at the outset. Supporters wanted to cut the number of people without health insurance in the country to zero, or close to it. But that didn't quite happen, and the removal of the requirement to buy health insurance increased the uninsured population further. Those findings are confirmed by a recent study at Oregon Health & Science University , OHSU. It focused on low-cost community health centers, and found